THE twin impacts of EMU and the year 2000 problem on computer systems will have damaging consequences for companies unless they prepare for change now, a business consultant has warned.

"We are talking about protecting national interests," according to Mr Sean O'Reilly of the British Government Year 2000 Task Force, who added that it could make the impact of BSE on beef markets seem like a "minor issue".

Mr O'Reilly addressed a conference in Dublin yesterday on the effect of the year 2000 and EMU on company computer systems. The 2000 problem relates to the use of the last two digits of a year to identify a date, and the inability of most older computer systems to recognise `00' as acceptable.

It will cost Irish businesses as much as £1,500 million between now and 1999 to deal with the date issue, Mr O'Reilly estimated. "The simplicity of the problem defies belief but the consequences of failing to resolve it are too serious to contemplate," he said.

The jump into EMU in January 1999 will also have a profound impact, he said. It will not just be a matter of adding a new currency. to existing computer packages, he warned. Systems will have to be able to treat two currencies as the "base" currency of the system, the euro and the pound.

"Adding another currency to a financial package is not a great task. The real issues are the legal and human resources issues," he said.

Mr Colin Hunt, a Bank of Ireland group treasury economist, told the conference that Ireland should have no problem with the convergence criteria for EMU. There was a problem, however, in that "Ireland is perceived as a sterling clone" and not truly independent of the British currency.

"EMU will have very profound implications on information technology," he said. It will require very substantial capital investment" that should be planned for now, he warned. The conference was organised by Trinity Group Ltd in conjunction with Digital Equipment Ireland and JBA Ireland.